Make apricot brandy at home

Just how long has the apricot rock-candy brandy recipe been around? Reader Jolly Perkocha has a pretty good idea.

“Have no idea where I got this, but it dates to the ’70s and was handwritten on an IBM punch card,” Perkocha says.

Sandy Steele of Moraga thumbed through her mother’s recipe box to find the recipe. Steele’s mother would have been 100 years old now, she says, “and this is from a handwritten card.”

And Ro Taylor’s father-inlaw, Harold “Hal” Emmerich, passed along the recipe for a family favorite. “Our family calls the apricot brandy kicka-poo juice,” says Taylor of Los Altos. “If you like dried apricots, then this is heaven.”

A number of you responded to Ida Raby’s request for a homemade apricot brandy that uses rock candy, and several offered detailed instructions. “Do not use Mediterranean apricots. The ’cots have to be the halves that are found easily in Silicon Valley,” says Taylor, who buys hers at DeMartini Orchard in Los Altos.

Some recipes call for a big, wide-mouthed jar with a screwtop lid. Others, including Taylor’s version, use a jar with a clamp-style lid and rubber ring. Some of you let the brandy percolate on a counter for just a week, while others say the recipe can last up to six months on the counter. Just make sure you remove the strings left behind by the dissolved rock candy.

Don’t, however, discard the plumped, alcohol-infused apricots. They’re tasty, readers say. “Eat the apricots,” Taylor says, but don’t give them to children. Steele says the apricots make “an interesting little nibble.”

Linda Williams also sent a copy of a vintage recipe card, but for a slightly different version that uses wine, brandy and sugar. Her recipe suggests using prunes, dried pears or peaches. And a couple of other Home Plates readers say you can try other dried fruits in this countertop cordial.

Lynne Bonino unearthed a long-ago Mercury News column that includes several types of homemade liqueurs. I’ve included a Polish recipe that appeared in that column as a bonus.

Request line

• Giselle Ridley of Hayward hopes Plates readers can deliver a recipe for “really good and moist chocolate madeleines.”

• As we sat around the dinner table on a recent visit to Tennessee, my mother reminisced

about the perfect little tea cakes her Aunt Louise used to bake. The tea cakes were neither cake nor cookie, and Mom remembers Aunt Louise used baking powder, but not much else. I’d like to surprise Mom with a similar recipe and perhaps a batch of the tea cakes for her April birthday. Do you have a recipe that might work?

Krupnik Spiced Honey Liqueur

INGREDIENTS

1½ cups honey

2⁄3 cup water

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

10 sticks cinnamon

4 whole cloves

5 strips lemon peel, 2 inches each 1 quart vodka

1 teaspoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS

In a large saucepan, mix honey, water, spices and lemon peel. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

Let mixture cool. Add vodka and vanilla and stir. Can be served warm or cold, but it’s best served warm.